


Looking Toward the Future

by elliptical



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Angst, Depression, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Post-Finale, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-17
Updated: 2016-03-17
Packaged: 2018-05-27 05:25:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6271504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elliptical/pseuds/elliptical
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dipper and Mabel deal with what they've seen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Looking Toward the Future

**Author's Note:**

> i've been wanting to do a post-finale gravity falls fic since the finale, but i wasn't sure how to put it together. it was this comic that broke the writers block dam:
> 
> http://sailorleo.tumblr.com/post/141080611780
> 
> and then i promptly wrote this in one sitting.
> 
> this is my first gravity falls fic. i just have a lot of feelings and want these kids to be okay

It's not easy to get used to California again. Not just because the sky is cloudy less often, or because the forests are less overwhelming, or because of living with parents rather than a secretive great uncle. Not just because of the friends made and left in Oregon, or even the huge number of mythical creatures and strange experiences that should never have existed outside of fairy tales.

It's because there's a sense of a great adventure coming to an end. Dipper feels it, unsure if Mabel does too. Everything is an adventure to Mabel. High school and all the new friends and trials and tribulations therein. College, marriage, the future. Everything traditional, every milestone a person is meant to hit, all of that is a source of excitement and anticipation for her.

Dipper's not sure how he feels about a traditional life. An uncomfortable part of him knows that he was close to living a life that no one else ever could, and that he gave up the dangerous and heroic for the mundane. It was the right decision, both for himself and his family. Most of him is confident in this, most of the time. But there's an even more uncomfortable part of him that doesn't want to release the future he gave up.

He's always been a bit of a nerd. Nowhere near as extroverted as his sister, a thousand times more interested in books and TV shows. It's easy to withdraw and research and obsess in peace, because outwardly he's no different than he's always been. Dipper Pines, chasing mysteries and the unknown until the end.

It's also easy to isolate himself, to become self absorbed, to care more about his own antics than about whatever adventures Mabel's embarking on. That's why he doesn't realize his sister is messed up until she's really messed up, and he wants to kick himself for not noticing.

\---

They're nearing the end of the school year, preparing for their return to Gravity Falls (and Dipper's heart beats faster every time he thinks about it, mostly excitement and a little apprehension), when Mabel knocks on Dipper's door. Her hair is messy. She looks suspiciously like she's been crying.

"Sleepover?" she asks.

Guilt punches Dipper in the chest. They haven't been spending much time together this year, given how little their social circles cross and how busy they've both been. Certainly they haven't been as close as they were when they stayed in Gravity Falls. And Dipper gave up his potential apprenticeship with Ford so that he and Mabel could face the world together. How did they manage to fall apart even when they live in the same house?

"Of course." He puts the journal he's started keeping aside, brightens his lamp and scoots over in his bed. Mabel climbs in beside him, burrowing under the covers.

She doesn't say anything for a long time. Dipper leans back against the pillows, yawning. "Everything okay?" he asks.

He's not sure if she feels it, the gap that accidentally opened between them. It's like he has to catch up with her like an old friend, even though they've seen each other every day for the past eight months. Mabel throws herself so wholeheartedly into her friendships and projects, and Dipper throws himself so wholeheartedly into his research... they haven't had time for each other. Haven't needed each other the way they used to.

He wants to ask if she's scared of going back to Gravity Falls. He wants to ask if the apocalypse feels to her like it does to him, a cross between a fever dream he can't wake up from and a memory smeared by blurry shadows. He wants to ask if she aches as fiercely for the town as he does, even despite the messiness they witnessed there.

But Mabel's breathing is soft and shaky. Dipper holds his tongue. If she wants to talk about it, she'll bring it up. The best he can do is snuggle up to her and wait for her to talk.

"Are you happy, Dipper?" she asks finally.

He blinks. "What kind of a question is that?"

"I just realized... I never asked. All this time we've spent sitting around the dinner table pretending things are completely normal, and all the reading you do, and. I never asked. I should have thought to ask before now."

It's a weird question. Even weirder is the way Dipper doesn't have an immediate answer. What does happiness even entail? It's not like his mind is all sunshine and rainbows and unicorns the same way Mabel's is. A lot of the time, he puts momentary joy aside for the pleasure of solving a new puzzle or unraveling a new mystery. Does that count as happiness?

He's definitely not miserable, at least. That must count for something.

"I think I am," he says slowly. "I'm not unhappy, anyway."

Mabel nods and tucks her head against his shoulder, her eyes closed. "That's good."

He pauses, runs his fingers through her hair, pulling the blankets tighter around them. "Why do you ask?"

"I dunno." She shrugs. "I don't think I am."

"What? Mabel, that's crazy." He laughs, incredulous, and immediately wants to kick himself when Mabel winces. "You're like the happiest person I know."

"I'm not really, though. I keep doing all the things that used to make me happy but they... they don't. I think the last time I remember being really happy was when we turned thirteen. And I've done so many things since then, met so many people that should make me happy. And I guess they do, a little, but it's like I'm trying to fix something broken."

Dipper wraps his arms tighter around her. "You haven't been happy since _last summer?_ " he asks, and the guilt rears up again, wraps cold fingers around his throat and chokes him. He should have noticed. He should have noticed, he should have done something, he should have cared more. "Mabel, that's - is it - is it because of Weirdmageddon? Nightmares, or..."

"I don't think so. I mean, it is a little bit. But I was feeling like this way before anything with Bill ever happened. Like everything good was slipping away. Like maybe if I had eternal summer then I'd be happy forever." She laughs, and her tears soak into Dipper's t-shirt. "I was so stupid. I'm so stupid. You're not supposed to be happy when you grow up. You lose all your interest in the stuff you liked as a kid and you just have to deal with that."

"What? Now _that's_ really crazy."

"When was the last time you saw an adult having fun for real?"

"Are you kidding? We see tons of adults having fun! What about our Gruncles, or Lazy Susan, or Soos, or..."

"Everyone else in Gravity Falls?" Mabel finishes. "The town that's upside down and backwards?"

"Mabel, growing up isn't supposed to make you miserable." Dipper's voice is firm.

"Maybe there's just something wrong with me, then." She says it with the kind of hollow defeat of someone announcing they didn't get into their ideal college, or they won't be able to follow their dream of becoming a basketball star, or they can't afford to live in their dream home. _Something's wrong with me and I'll be unhappy forever and I just need to accept that._

Dipper swallows. He's saved the whole universe before, but here he's out of his depth, and he knows it. "I think," he says after a few moments, "that this is a secret we can let Mom and Dad in on."

\---

Mabel gets a depression diagnosis and prescription that both answer a lot of questions. It's two weeks before they go back to Gravity Falls to visit all the friends they left behind when she's adjusted to the new medication.

"Wow," she tells Dipper over a vanilla milkshake at a local ice cream place. "I feel so much better."

Dipper laughs. "You think?"

"Are you anxious about going back to Gravity Falls?"

"No," Dipper answers, surprised at the complete honesty. "I'm really excited. What about you?"

"I'm excited too." She smiles at him, a private little grin that's the most genuine expression he's seen on her face in months. "I miss everyone so much."

"Me too. But, hey, Mabel?" He stirs his milkshake, looking down at that instead of her.

"Yeah?"

"We don't really talk about... what happened last summer. And I mean, I try not to bring it up. I don't want you to think I'm obsessed or anything, I don't want to be that guy. But."

"But?"

"But..." His face heats. This is probably the stupidest question anyone's ever asked. "Everything really happened, didn't it?"

An odd look crosses her face. "Of course."

"It's just, everything is so normal here, and no one even knows what happened except you, and we don't talk about it, and." He shrugs. "Sometimes it all seems so far away I get worried that I made it all up. Dreamed it somehow."

"You definitely didn't dream it." Mabel glances around to be sure no one's within earshot, but it's not even noon yet and the place is nearly deserted. "We survived an apocalypse, Dipper. That definitely happened."

"Okay. Thanks."

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah."

"No, I mean it. Dipper." She reaches across the table, finds his hands. "Are you _okay_? Because I don't want to wake up one day and find out you're not okay and that I didn't do anything to help."

"Yeah," he says, ignoring the squirm of discomfort in his stomach that says _not quite_. "I'm alright. Thanks for checking."

\---

The summer in Gravity Falls passes as uneventfully as a summer in Gravity Falls can, which just means the near-death experiences are minimal and both twins manage not to incur a second apocalypse. Old friends, old family, new friends, new family. Mabel spends all her time chattering to Candy and Grenda while Dipper explores the town, his journal tucked firmly under his arm. Gravity Falls has a lot of secrets left to uncover. He could probably spend every summer here for the rest of his life and not be finished.

It awakens something in him, some little piece of him that's always been there, itching under the surface. The switch flips. He needs the answers, not just in Gravity Falls but in the rest of the world. He needs to contact his Gruncles and learn about their research and experiences, he needs to carry on their legacy. He needs to finish high school and go to college like a normal teenager, but his life needs to be dedicated to the preservation of this universe.

That's how things need to be. There are no other options.

Mabel giggles when Dipper stays up late into the night, scribbling by the light of his bedside lamp. "You know, you're acting worryingly like Ford," she says. It's a joke, but it slides uncomfortably close to the truth.

Dipper makes a rather impolite gesture in her direction and she laughs harder.

He's not going to think about that, about the uncles who didn't reconcile until they were in their seventies, about the rift between them that caused such a long separation. Not the literal dimensional rift, although he guesses he should factor that in.

Mabel isn't Stan, not by a long shot. And Dipper is not going to be Ford. Ford followed the pursuit of knowledge for knowledge's sake. Dipper pursues knowledge for other people. Ford's obsessions were dangerous, and Dipper's are built around safety. This is how he reassures himself when he turns out the light and sets his pen down for the night.

He ignores the voice in the back of his mind, hissing, overpowering. _If you screw up then you're going to lose them all. One mistake, one misstep, and this whole world goes up in flames. Your family torn apart, your sister dead, you alone and a failure and guilty forever._

He ignores the voice because indulging it will open up a mental portal he doesn't want to step into lest he get lost. If he pretends it doesn't exist, he can keep the door locked forever.

Everything's fine. He listens to the softness of Mabel's breathing as she sleeps, the chirping of the crickets outside, and tries to believe himself. Everything's fine.

\---

When Dipper is fifteen, he starts to put some puzzle pieces together. He's nothing if not good at solving mysteries, right?

Mabel's depression diagnosis sent him down a long trail of learning about various mental health issues, and mental health and psychology in general. That interest has always taken a back burner to the supernatural, but he knows enough to recognize a few Problematic Things happening in his head.

Formative traumatic experiences sometimes aren't recognized as traumatic until later. Sometimes the person doesn't realize how messed up they are until they're too messed up to fix it. It happens a lot to kids who grow up in toxic environments, or soldiers who see things they shouldn't in combat.

Dipper figures that raising a chaos god, witnessing the apocalypse and torture of his friends and family, seeing a throne made of the bodies of everyone he cared about, watching rivers of blood flow, repeatedly having his and Mabel's lives threatened, and having to fight legions from hell as a twelve-year-old has probably messed him up a little.

Worse is the way that nothing feels real unless he's in Gravity Falls, and even then it's not tangible. People don't talk about it. There's no proof Weirdmageddon ever happened. His parents have no idea what he and Mabel saw, and he's got no way of telling them. He's got no way of telling anyone, since what happened was too wild to be believed. And he and Mabel don't talk about it, following the Gravity Falls code just as staunchly as any of the town's permanent citizens.

Dipper doesn't remember why he and Mabel don't talk about it. Was it a mutual agreement? He thinks he was just worried she'd laugh at him, or worse that she'd be concerned, call him obsessed. He certainly can't bring it up now that he really is obsessed. He pinches the bridge of his nose, surveying the journals and maps and articles he's collected about strange phenomena not just in Gravity Falls but the rest of the world as well. Worst are the strange deaths he's sure he could somehow have prevented, if he'd just learned more earlier, if he'd become Ford's apprentice instead of returning to California, if he'd...

Mabel can't possibly be affected the same way he is. Does she even remember what happened, or has she tossed the apocalypse into a drawer with all the other weird childhood experiences you're meant to ignore as you get older?

She can't possibly be affected the same way he is. She's never said a word.

\---

They're sixteen years old when they have the worst fight Dipper can remember.

Mabel hasn't made any secret of her worry over the past year or so. She drags him out to dances with her friends, sets him up on dates, takes him to the movies, tries to get him to open up. She's worried sick about the way he won't put a pen down, or the number of marked-up maps he has, or the research he's done into interdimensional portals and demons like Bill Cipher "just in case." She's worried sick about the way he won't connect with anyone, the agitated manner in which he shoves her out of his work. Dipper knows she's worried. It's not that he doesn't care. It's that he can't afford to care.

The thing is that knowing he's messed up doesn't change things. It doesn't magically fix the world, or make the supernatural stop happening. It's not like Mabel's depression, where a prescription and a few coping mechanisms can make the world bright again. Dipper has to obsess over the supernatural because if he doesn't, _who else is going to?_

He and Mabel saved the world together. He and Mabel and their Gruncles. Their Gruncles won't be around forever. There will be other threats to the world. Who's going to face them? Not the incompetent government agents so invested in bureaucracy and paperwork that they miss what's right in front of them. Not the citizens of Gravity Falls who accept their town's weirdness but don't fear it. Not an underprepared teenager who crosses his fingers that he'll get lucky twice.

No. Dipper has a responsibility, and responsibility requires sacrifice. It's okay. He'll make sure he and Mabel don't end up like Stan and Ford. They're not the same people at all. This isn't selfish, this is selfless.

Mabel disagrees.

She closes his journal while he's in the middle of charting differences between urban and suburban and rural supernatural phenomena. His pen goes wide, streaking over the page.

"Hey!"

"You have a problem, Dipper," she says without preamble.

"I need to finish this, just hang on a sec."

"No." She snatches the notebook out of his hands, setting it on the bedside table. "We're talking about this."

"Are we? Well, that's only four years late."

Mabel recoils. "Four years late? You were the one who never said anything, you _told me you were okay_."

"No, I..." Dipper can't stand the look on her face. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I know. I know. I didn't mean that, I'm sorry."

She sits down at the foot of his bed, folding her legs and resting her hands on her knees. There are flowers in her braided hair today. Dipper wonders briefly if she picked them herself, and then with a rush of panic realizes he can't remember what month it is, or what flowers are even in bloom.

"What's happening to us, Dipper?" Mabel asks. Her brows are drawn together, and she looks sadder than Dipper's seen her in a long time. "We were supposed to take on the world together, remember? We're a team. That was the whole reason we stuck together. How are we supposed to be a team if we don't talk to each other?"

Dipper shrugs uncomfortably, his hand twitching toward the journal. Mabel's glare stops him.

"Maybe we're not meant to be a team," he says. "Maybe we're codependent, Mabel, did you ever think about that? Maybe we should have lives separate from each other."

The sadness disappears, replaced by a fury so cold that Dipper gets chills. He doesn't even mean any of the things he's saying. Why is he - when did he...

_When did I get so callous?_

"Lives separate from each other? Our lives are as separate as they can get, in case you hadn't noticed! We don't have any mutual friends outside Gravity Falls. You don't seem to have many friends at all. You don't talk to anyone about what you're doing, including me. You don't ask me about my life or how I'm doing. I've got a boyfriend I've been dating for a month, you barely blinked when I told you. All you care about are your stupid maps and your stupid notebooks and your stupid aliens and ghosts and supernatural experiences!"

She leans forward, her jaw clenched and her eyes wide, like she's begging him to see her. Really see her. "Dipper, I don't even know who you are right now. You're scaring me. I'm scared. I'm scared you're going to get hurt, and Mom and Dad don't know anything's wrong because they think this is just how you are, but I'm _scared._ I don't want to be scared like this."

Dipper's mouth moves before he can make it stop, pouring more of the words that he doesn't mean, knows he can't take back. "Why do you care? You've never cared, Mabel. All you care about are your boys and your friends and high school and the future and living a perfectly average life. You don't care about Gravity Falls, you don't care about people dying, you don't care about everything we saw! Why are you suddenly picking now to decide it matters?"

Mabel's fists clench in the bedsheets, her knuckles going white. For a moment Dipper thinks that she's going to run out of the room, leave him to his devices, and it'll be awful but it'll leave him free to do what he needs to do, and the ends will justify the means.

She doesn't leave. She screws her eyes shut and opens her mouth and screams, and it's rage and fear but it's something else too, an edge of a howl and pain that's nearly feral.

" _BECAUSE IT WAS MY FAULT!_ "

The breath knocks out of Dipper's lungs like she hit him. For once he's not thinking about the notebooks, or the memories, or what potential horrors the future might hold. He has eyes only for Mabel, Mabel, his sister who he loves more than anything in the world. He is thinking about her hair brushing his chin and her tears on his shirt and her whisper of _I don't think I'm happy._

"What?" he says.

She stands up and paces, her hands moving in jerky motions, like her body's been overtaken by a malfunctioning robot. She isn't screaming anymore, but her laughter is sharp-edged, near hysterical, high-pitched and wild and out of control.

"You're right, Dipper!" she says, and laughs again, and there are tears slipping down her cheeks, and his mind is a ground-down stopped clock, and he doesn't know what to do.

"You're right!" she repeats. "You're right, you're right, you're right! Mabel and her friends and her boys and only caring about herself and her own feelings and her own happiness! Mabel and her wanting to have fun and a bright future and stomping on everyone else in the process! Mabel and all of her stupid feelings and shallow impulses! Mabel can't care about anything real, Mabel only cares about herself, Mabel only cares about instant gratification and feeling good! That's what it's always been, isn't it? You're right, Dipper, you're right you're right you're right. It was my fault. It was all my fault. I was the one who broke the rift, I was the one who made the deal, I was the one who caused everything because of my stupid fucking _feelings_. I'm selfish and I ruined everything for you and got people tortured and could have been the cause of our extinction, the death of everyone who matters, and it's all my fault, it's all my fault, you're _fucking right._ "

She hiccups and sinks to her knees, crying too hard to continue, her face blotchy and red. She's choking on the tears, snot running down her face, shaking from head to toe.

Nausea roils in Dipper's gut.

So that's why they haven't talked about it.

He rolls out of bed and wraps his arms around her, and she wraps her arms around him and clings, burying her face against his shoulder. And he's crying too, rocking her on the floor, his hands tangled in her hair as he murmurs, "Mabel, no, nonono, no, shh, shh, shh. No, no, no, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry."

\---

They talk about it, like they probably should have four years ago.

Dipper tells her about his obligations. He tells her about the nightmares and the pressure and the stress. He tells her about how he wakes up every day scared that he'll mess up and cause a new armageddon, or that someone else will and he won't be equipped to stop it. He tells her about the fear that if he doesn't save the world, no one else will. He tells her about how every strange death or series of deaths he finds feels like a punch in the gut, because all of those people were someone's Mabel, and if he couldn't keep them safe then how can he save her? How can he save their parents, or their friends, or humanity at large?

Mabel tells him about her guilt. She's been struggling with nightmares and sickness of her own since everything happened, fighting them off with therapy and coping techniques and her medication, but there's only so much that can do. She can't shake the feeling that she deserves to be unhappy. She can't shake the feeling that the constant fear and pain is a punishment for trying to buy eternal happiness with other people's blood.

"You didn't know what you were doing," Dipper tells her fiercely. "You didn't know. You weren't trying to hurt anyone. You didn't _know_ , Mabel."

"You would have known," she whispers. "I was so caught up in myself, in what I was feeling, I didn't even think. I knew it was a bad idea. I knew something was off. I just wanted so badly to be _happy_."

"I know. I know, I know, I know. I'm so sorry." Dipper's breath hitches. "I didn't mean any of those things, any of the things I said. I'm sorry. I know that doesn't unsay them, but I'm so sorry."

Mabel laughs, a watery sound. "You know what's fucked up?"

"What?"

"It was still the best summer I've ever had."

Dipper laughs in response, wiping his eyes, an invisible tension broken. "Me too."

"What are we gonna do?"

"I don't know." He hesitates and pulls back. "Maybe, uh, the opposite of whatever we did to screw things up this bad."

"Talking. I think talking is the opposite of that."

"Hmm. Talking sounds good."

Mabel dries her face on his shirt sleeve. "Remember when you told me that growing up isn't supposed to make you miserable? That was really good advice. I'm giving you the same advice now. You aren't supposed to be this miserable. What happened to the twelve-year-old Dipper who was so excited to solve mysteries and learn about the world?"

"He grew up."

"Well, he grew up wrong," Mabel says firmly. "But there's good news! I think he's still in there. I think he can start over. I think his sister can probably start over, too. They're pretty resilient people. _Especially_ since they're both awesome."

Dipper laughs again, picking a daisy out of her hair. "There's the Mabel I know and love."

"There's the Dipper I missed." She pats his cheek. "I'm going to help you."

"We're..." He takes a deep breath. "Going to help each other. Even if I'm not sure how yet."

"We're going to enlist some adult help too."

"We are?"

"We maybe don't have to tell them about the whole apocalypse thing. But, you know, that's easily omitted." Mabel stands up, offers a hand. "You told me to get Mom and Dad involved when I was depressed. That was a really good decision. We're still kids, Dipper. We can't figure all this out alone."

He takes her hand and pulls himself to his feet. "Okay," he says, rolling the words around in his mind and then trying them out on his tongue. "We're going to be okay."

"Yep. And you're going to come outside with me and enjoy the day, because it is _beautiful_ , and your journal will still be there when you get back."

"Can I bring the journal with..."

"Don't push it."

Dipper rolls his eyes and allows himself to be dragged out the door.


End file.
